Letters to the editor for Friday, February 8, 2013

Friday

Feb 8, 2013 at 2:00 AM

If tyranny comes to America it will come from the gun people, not the anti-gun people. Look to the past: It was the gun people who brought the Nazis to power in Germany and the Fascists in Italy. Look to the present: It is the flood of cheap guns that spray bullets that is tearing Africa apart. The governments of Congo and Nigeria are powerless to stop it.

If tyranny comes to America it will come from the gun people, not the anti-gun people. Look to the past: It was the gun people who brought the Nazis to power in Germany and the Fascists in Italy. Look to the present: It is the flood of cheap guns that spray bullets that is tearing Africa apart. The governments of Congo and Nigeria are powerless to stop it.

The gun lobbies are using fear of "big government" to keep their private arsenals such as the ones that supplied last year's mass murderers.

Fortunately, a majority of Americans are sick of our barbaric levels of gun homicides and the mass murders by demented young gun owners with weapons that spray bullets and want gun regulations. Supreme Court Justices Scalia, Alito and Thomas read the Constitution's "need of a well-ordered militia" to authorize individual ownership of guns that have no purpose other than to kill people. They are wrong. That isn't where America stands.

I carried hand grenades all through the South Pacific in World War II. Didn't bring any home. I wonder if this nutty Supreme Court would include them in my right to bear arms?

John Jacobs

Highland

Bushmaster is a brand of firearm with different models. Sportsmen/sportswomen do use them for hunting deer, varmint hunting, target shooting, etc.

I'm an avid sportsman and use mine all the time and enjoy it. There are New York state laws that say when hunting with a semiautomatic rifle, you are allowed only a five-round clip with one in the chamber — a total of six rounds.

When target shooting, you are allowed a 10-round clip. What's next? Maybe they should take away your right to drink coffee.

Ronald Kramer

Westbrookville

Gov.Coumo's recent revision of New York's firearms laws had nothing to do with public safety, and everything to do with political posturing.

His issuance of a "letter of necessity" to allow him to bypass the normal legislative process is a reprehensible abuse of power. His shrill declaration that "no one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer," and the urgency with which this legislation was passed, would make it seem as if New York was some Third World nation with armed citizens roaming the streets with "assault rifles" and murdering innocents by the hundreds or thousands.

According to the Uniform Crime Reports at the FBI's website (FBI.GOV), there were five homicides committed with rifles in New York in 2011. That was the lowest number since 1995, when the state had 22 homicides committed with a rifle. The reason that most responsible gun owners are upset at the new law is because it is a politically motivated, simplistic solution to a problem that is almost statistically insignificant.

Responsible citizens will be forced to lose more of their rights, while the irresponsible lawbreakers will continue to break the law and will have lost nothing.